Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Tagliatelle with Chestnuts and Truffle Oil

File this under "tasty things to do with truffle oil." A scant teaspoon of the stuff drizzled over each bowlful is so nice. This dish also involves one of my current favorite cooking tricks: Use chopped portabello mushrooms in your base for pan sauces.

You know how a lot of dishes start with sauteeing a shallot, garlic, etc? Well, just add a chopped portabello cap or two to that. Then, when those mushrooms are a couple minutes from being tender, douse them in balsamic vinegar or sherry (to keep the garlic from burning, add it just before the liquid). Let it reduce until your ingredients are still a bit wet and the mushrooms are done. Then either pull it off the heat, or continue making your dish.

In this case, I added just-cooked tagliatelle and chopped chestnuts. Then I stirred it up, added some pasta cooking water for moisture and pulled it off the heat. I plated it and finished it off with fresh parsley, shaved ricotta salata cheese and that truffle oil.

I was going to write out a recipe, but it seems like I just did. Simple, fresh and fast with little details to make it great. The dish definitely highlighted the chestnuts, cheese and truffle oil, which was the big idea. I did a similar version with that same tagliatelle and mushroom mixture, as well as shredded chicken, peas and lemon. It was nice, but I loved the chestnut version....and the next day, I used the leftovers to make these brownies.

Julie O'Hara Chicago, IL

Welcome! I'm a freelance recipe developer and writer for magazines like Shape, Clean Eating and National Geographic Traveler. View my work at julieoharawriter.com. I love your emails and comments--thanks for reading!